


Plans in the Making

by Ikebanaka



Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Pranks, actual thought put into ninja ways and customs, but if i do it will take a long ass time, i hope i write more, naruto will be good at fuuinjutsu, pranks as training, smart naruto
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 19:28:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20215030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ikebanaka/pseuds/Ikebanaka
Summary: Sometimes Naruto seems kinda stupid. Other times, people see him plan a 'prank.'





	Plans in the Making

**Author's Note:**

> I've been craving Smart!Naruto fics that don't make him a super rational genius mofo, and this was the result

It’s not that Naruto doesn’t know what chakra is; he just can’t seem to find the right words. So it kinda hurts that Sakura-chan immediately assumed he didn’t know anything at all. 

Then again, he did do pretty terribly on tests, which are how people measure whether you can use something for some weird reason. Like, he can use it, he can feel how it works when he gets it right, and isn’t that the whole point? Why does it matter if he doesn’t know all the specific words? And it’s not like he even knows half the kanji people use for those words, anyway, since no one except Iruka-sensei and Jiji cared whether he could read, and he didn’t want to use up his precious time with them on _ that_.

So yeah, tests are weird. And painful.

And probably why Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme think he’s dumb.

Which he’s not, dammit, and he will prove it to them!

_ Thud. _

...As soon as he can climb this _ stupid tree _.

* * *

Naruto is not-so-secretly gleeful when Kakashi-sensei introduces them to storage seals and explosive tags, because _ holy crap _ the sheer variety of traps and pranks that have suddenly opened up for him is mindblowing!

Then he has a thought that nearly makes him squeal.

Some kinds of paint he’s used are kinda flammable, but in a flare-up-quick-and-die kind of way because he doesn’t actually want to burn a building down, thanks. Or maybe sparklers would work better? 

“No, that’s too much explosion when I just want chaos,” Naruto mumbles, using his finger to trace the sample explosive tag Kakashi had given him to practice drawing. Something about testing them for attitude, blah blah blah. Sakura-chan is meticulously tracing her third practice tag with regular ink to his right, while Sasuke-teme cheats with his stupid magic eyes on her other side, but Naruto is still on his first because there’s something about the way the swirl-spikes on the top and bottom end that makes him think of the storage seal they were looking at.

“Kakashi-sensei, what does this part of the seal do?” Naruto jabs at one of the swirl-spikes. Sakura looks up, with that face like she doesn’t know what to ask first, but is pretty sure she’ll regret asking either way.

“Why, how smart of you to ask, Naruto, instead of blindly copying.” Kakashi-sensei eye-smiles blandly and walks over to Naruto’s side of the table, letting that sink in for a moment before starting to explain. The genin barely manages to hold back a _ snrk _ at his teammates’ offended faces. “This here is called an uzuten. It switches the chakra flow and directs the effects of the seal outward.”

“Ha, I was right! I knew that bit looked like the storage seal ‘ttebayo!”

Kakashi-sensei raises his brow. “Oh?”

“Well, I figured that if it works like a jutsu, the different parts change what happens by changing how the chakra moves, so if a part looks the same on the storage seal and the tag, it’s gotta do the same thing ‘ttebayo, and the only thing the same about them is that something comes out of the seal!”

“Dobe, they’re nothing alike; explosive tags separate your chakra into yin and yang, then recombine them all at once to cause an explosion. Storage seals just let you move things in and out of a pocket space.”

Naruto brushes off the faint burn of embarrassment he feels at Sasuke-teme’s condescending remark and opens his mouth to retort, only for Kakashi-sensei to beat him to it.

“Sasuke is technically correct about how these seals work, but Naruto’s right about _ why _ they work. The uzuten in the explosive tag switches the flow of the seal from separating chakra to recombining chakra and pushing it outwards. The uzuten in the storage seal switches the flow from taking in an object to pushing out an object.” He turns to Naruto. “Good job.”

Flushing a little with pride, Naruto looks at Sasuke-teme and sticks his tongue out triumphantly at him.

_ Ha! Suck it ‘ttebayo! _

“Ne, Kakashi-sensei, can you show us how to combine seals?” Puppy dog eyes, activate!

“You literally glitterbombed the missions desk less than 24 hours ago. Why would I show you how to do that?”

“Aha! So there is a way!”

“Naruto no.”

“Naruto yes!”

“Experimenting with seals is dangerous,” Kakashi-sensei says, narrowing his eye.

“Um, Kakashi-sensei?” Sakura-chan pipes up. “No offense, but when has something being dangerous ever stopped Naruto from doing it?” Okay, so that isn’t exactly what he was hoping for, but she’s technically arguing on his side so he’ll take it. Plus that means she’s probably interested in fuuinjutsu too, so maybe they can study together-!

His fantasy is cut off before it can properly begin by Sasuke. “Even if you tell him not to.”

“Um, rude? But seriously Kaka-sensei, it would be so cool ‘ttebayo!” Naruto gives up on the puppy dog eyes (they really aren’t working, even with his Moe Eyes no Jutsu making them slightly bigger and teary), and moves on to Plan B: sell their sensei on teamwork. “If I can get this to work, I’ll finally have what I need to set up a large-scale prank in the Hokage Tower, which is really good training for getting into secure places, and screwing people over from the inside, and getting away cleanly as a team ‘ttebayo!”

“Infiltration, sabotage, and evasion, huh?” Kakashi-sensei muses.

“Uh, yes?” Those definitely sounded like the words Iruka-sensei had used when explaining why his pranks were good training.

“Alright, how about this: the three of you copy out 100 storage seals and explosive tags, and I mean 100 each, and come up with a solid, workable plan that I approve, and I will teach you how to combine the seals. Deal?” 

“Deal ‘ttebayo!” He barely had to think once to accept Kakashi-sensei’s terms, let alone twice. It sounded like the least effort he’d ever had to put into gaining a new skill for pranking.

* * *

Naruto was wrong. So very wrong. 

Copying out the seals, and getting Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme to do it too, was easy, but the plan? That’s straight up torture; they don’t believe him when he explains how to avoid being noticed, and none of them can agree on what traps to use and where.

After 2 days of arguing, he gets fed up and shows them how he avoids being noticed. It has nothing to do with genjutsu, or hiding from people to make sure they weren’t seen entering the place. 

(Which normally he would do through a window, but those are trapped to hell and back and he only knows how to get himself through without triggering anything. His method basically involves replacing everything as he goes through, and he doesn’t have the time or patience to teach his team how to disarm all twelve traps on any given window.) 

In the Hokage Tower, at least, the chunin who work the desk are really good at picking out normal genjutsu, which Jiji says is ‘for security purposes,’ except that given the shit he’s seen in the mission room on his way to see the old man, he’s pretty sure it’s just their finely tuned bullshit sensor so other shinobi can’t get away with turning in half-assed mission reports.

That, plus the sheer level of dedication some people have for getting out of turning in proper reports, means that it’s basically impossible to sneak past the mission desk ninja, because they notice sneaky shit so fast it’s kinda scary.

Naruto had stopped relying on all that ages ago. He isn’t good enough to sneak past them, and neither are Sakura-chan and Sasuke-teme, which means what they need to do is not avoid being seen, but avoid being _ noticed _. 

He doesn’t even need to use a distraction; all he has to do is wear navy blue pants and a khaki-green sleeveless shirt, put his hitai-ate around his arm, and stroll through with a tired look, and no one pays him any attention whatsoever. 

The looks on their faces when they ask if anyone has seen Naruto and no one says yes are something he will treasure forever. 

Unfortunately, that isn’t the end of it. Not even close.

“The best place to put the seal is right outside the Hokage’s office.”

“Sasuke-kun is right; because a lot of official business goes through the Hokage’s office, and there’s only one door to the office, the most traffic will naturally occur in the areas immediately outside of the door!”

“Uh, Sakura-chan, ninja don’t use the door most of the time,” Naruto points out. “Plus, most of the people who actually use the door are clients, and from personal experience pranking them doesn’t end well for anybody.” He scratches the back of his head and laughs awkwardly. 

“...Oh my God Naruto what did you do,” Sakura-chan asks flatly.

“...Nothing?” Despite his best efforts, it comes out as a question, and he quickly gives up on his (terrible, terrible) lie when Sakura-chan’s beautiful green eyes narrow. “I may or may not have used Oiroke no Jutsu on some really important looking guy in front of his wife and he may or may not have gotten a huge nosebleed and passed out, and Jiji may or may not have nearly been sued for allowing, uh, licentious? Yeah, licentious behavior around clients that, uh, compromise their health.”

His teammates’ faces have that reluctantly-impressed-but-also-questioning-his-sanity look, which he decides to take as a sign that the prank is successful even years later.

“So we put the seal outside the window.” 

“That’s perfect, Sasuke-kun!” Sakura-chan looks admiring, but Naruto can see some doubt shining through. Which is good, because it makes him feel less bad about pointing out the problem with Sasuke’s idea, which would normally set her off.

“We’re supposed to be in-fil-trating,” he sounds out. “Just doing something to the outside isn’t good enough ‘ttebayo!” 

“And how do you suggest we do that, dobe?” Sasuke asks in a sarcastic tone of voice. “Seeing as we can’t do anything inside because of clients, according to you?”

“No, see, it’s not the clients that are the problem, it’s that the door right outside the office is mostly clients. There are doors that only ninja have access to. I was thinking we could tag the hallway and staircase between the Hokage’s office and the mission report room ‘ttebayo! Civvies ain’t allowed in the report room because nobody wants other ninja pretending to be clients and swiping mission reports on their way through.” 

Having laid it out for them, Naruto waits for their approval with only a tiny bit of- of appre- apprension? No, wait, apprehension! Thank you, Iruka-sensei.

“Huh,” Sakura-chan says with consideration. “That’s a good point. I think we have a goal. But if it’s so important not to have random ninja near the reports, could you get through there with just changing your clothes? Won’t they check closer then?” She goes silent, clearly thinking, and Naruto does a little thought himself.

Then Sasuke speaks up, and Naruto can feel things starting to click.

“Maybe they check chakra signatures.” Sasuke has a look on his face like that’s obviously the answer, but Naruto thinks it might be a bit different.

The thing is, Naruto’s little changing clothes trick never used to work until he started stealing Iruka’s hitae-ate, and he used to think just having one is what made the difference, but he just realized that if that was it, then anyone could get a blacksmith to make one, and that wouldn’t be safe. Which means there’s something else about the hitae-ate that stops people from looking twice.

Naruto continues his thought process out loud. “Actually, there’s too many ninja for the desk people to memorize every Konoha-nin’s signature. But what does every Konoha-nin have?” He waited for Sakura-chan and the bastard to catch on before continuing. “That’s right, a hitae-ate ‘ttebayo! Which means there’s something about our headbands, specifically, that keys us in!” Here, he turns to the bastard, hating that the guy has the answer to his question. “Sasuke, does anything look different about them?”

Sasuke, thank the Shadow God, doesn’t question him, and just turns his magic eyes on and looks at Naruto’s forehead protector. 

“There’s some kind of chakra matrix throughout the plate,” he reports. “How does that help us.”

“It doesn’t,” Naruto shrugs, secretly wondering why his asshole teammate always sounds dead inside or bitchy. “I just wanted to know. Never know when it might come in handy.” He takes delight in the rage that flashes across his rival’s face.

“Unless the matrix is different for every level of shinobi,” Sakura-chan points out.

“Why would that matter though, ‘ttebayo?” He asks in confusion. “It’s not like genin aren’t allowed-” he cuts himself off. “Allowed ‘ttebayo. We’re not sneaking in if we’re allowed in. We’ve been doing this wrong for two days dattebayo.” He groans, slaps his cheeks, and crouches down with his head in his hands. Of all the setbacks-!

Naruto looks up at his teammates and sees his own dawning horror and frustration reflected there. But he can’t give up now, they were finally all working together on something, and for the first time he hasn’t felt ignored or stupid! This has to work out.

He might actually cry if it doesn’t.

“All that means is we have to change our target,” Naruto starts. He takes a breath and stands back up. “Maybe we can get into that part of the Tower without any- any, uh, in- infi-”

“Infiltration,” Sakura-chan supplies, moving her hands from _ augh-despair-tugging-on-her-bangs _to her hips.

“Yeah, that, but there are parts of the Tower we aren’t allowed in dattebayo,” he continues. He pauses to make a mental list, and the other two jump in.

“Wherever it is S-rank mission scrolls are drafted, and reports are stored,” Sasuke suggests in a carefully careless voice that is honestly kinda suspicious. He clearly has something in mind for that room, and while Naruto will admit that that is certainly an area they are not allowed in, he has a bad feeling Sasuke’s ‘something’ involves reading some of those scrolls, which is, as far as Naruto is aware, punishable by death if you’re unauthorized. 

Naruto silently decides they’re not going for the mission scrolls.

Sakura’s suggestion of the place where the Council meets is- well, not something Naruto would’ve considered, partially because civilians are involved, which never ends well for him, and partially because that’s where rules are made, and that process should never be interrupted by people who don’t want the next set of rules to target them.

He really hates when that happens to him.

Also, it’s no shinobi’s business what goes on there unless they’re part of it. Yeah, Naruto’s opinion is that friendship is sacred and shinobi should have a certain level of autonomy and free thought, but it’s the Hokage’s job, or the team leader’s job, to put consideration into personal bonds when assigning missions and tasks, so everyone can do their part without having to question it. It only gets messy ‘cause they kinda don’t put that consideration in. Naruto would; that’s why he wants to be Hokage. No more of that ‘failing missions because ninja don’t know what to put first’ nonsense. It should be clear that shinobi safety comes first, because goals and actions can always be accomplished later.

“Naruto!” _ Thwack! _

“Ow, Sakura-chan! What was that for, ‘ttebayo?!” He rubs his head with a whine, giving her a stink eye for point two seconds.

“Stop spacing the fuck out would you?!”

Oh. Oops. 

“Sorry, sorry, ehehe!” Naruto rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, trying to get his mind back on track. “Okay, so the way I see it, we got two possible targets. Honestly, the S-rank scrolls are out, sorry, I only got in that one time ‘cause Jiji let me, and the council room doesn’t have security ‘cause ANBU sweep it before each meeting, which makes it not infiltrating, which leaves the tokujou evaluation room and the T&I passageway.”

“First of all, why the tokujou examination room, as opposed to the jounin or chuunin ones?” Sasuke asks suspiciously.

“Well, I don’t think we can get into the jounin one, and genin are allowed to see the chuunin one sometimes,” Naruto answers. _ Duh, _ he doesn’t say. For once. It’s okay, Sasuke clearly doesn’t have his _ knowledge _ or _ experience _, it’s not his fault. (Naruto does a smug little mental dance anyway.)

“Okay that’s great and all but uh, did you say the _ T&I passageway? _ ” Sakura-chan demands. “Wouldn’t they, oh, I dunno, _ torture and interrogate us _ if we’re caught?!”

“_ Second of all _ ,” Sasuke cuts in, sounding snarly, “when the hell did you get into the S-rank scrolls? _ How _ did you get into the S-rank scrolls?!”

“I got in through the window and Jiji didn’t raise the alarms even though he told me he saw me doing it in his crystal ball later,” Naruto explains. Then tries not to wince, because he doesn’t know if he was supposed to not tell anyone about that thing.

“Then wouldn’t he see us coming this time?!”

Naruto just kinda… stares at him.

“Sasuke. We’re gonna be doing this during the daytime, so Sakura’s parents don’t get pissed. Which means the Hokage is gonna be awake and have that thing active.” He pauses. “Of course he’s gonna see us coming ‘ttebayo!”

“Then this mission is doomed to failure, and there’s no point!” Sasuke snaps back.

“The point is to learn, asshole, and we may be pretty fucking awesome, but we’re no Kage yet dattebayo!” Naruto fires right back. “You think we’d get all the way to someone else’s Kage?! As long as it’s not for real, it trains us and whoever we get a leg up on, which means the old man will let it happen so we can train ‘ttebayo! 

Naruto can see Sakura-chan grudgingly accepting what he’s saying, maybe even opening her mouth to agree, but the bastard is getting red in the face and getting ready to argue. “How do yo-”

“Sasuke-kun!” Did she just-? Hell yeah she did! Naruto is as shocked as Sakura-chan looks that she cut him off, but she doesn’t stop there. She visibly steels herself before continuing. “The Hokage clearly let Naruto get into a secure area before because he knew it wasn’t malicious, and would probably help him, so it stands to reason that the same would apply here. As long as our actions and intentions are not malicious, and function as training for both ourselves and others, it should follow that he will not interfere with our mission.” She looks determined, but Naruto can tell by the wordiness of her speech that she’s actually nervous.

Huh. It looks like that somehow managed to put the jerkwad’s hackles back down. Nice.

But they’re still not even close to done.

* * *

Two days later, they bring their plan to Kaka-sensei, who gives it the barest of skims before he approves it. Naruto feels cheated. They worked hard on that, dammit!

On the plus side, it means none of them can argue with anything in the plan any more, and therefore no more thought is required, because Kaka-sensei approved that plan specifically, and they’re smart enough to know that if they change even the smallest thing, he will have grounds to claim that he wasn’t responsible and he can’t be blamed, and all three of them are determined to drag him with them if they’re caught.

Teamwork; what a beautiful thing.

**Author's Note:**

> I’m going with the assumption that Naruto’s verbal tic is more of a verbal filler-and-emphasis thing, and therefore doesn’t really show up in his thoughts as much. Also, the difference in ‘dattebayo’ versus ‘’ttebayo’ is in how the sentence ends. ‘Da’ is an informal version of ‘desu,’ which loosely translates to ‘it is,’ so in sentences that would end in ‘da’ in Japanese I use ‘dattebayo’ instead of ‘’ttebayo.’ It’s not an exact science, more of a feeling, but I’m not translating every fucking thing he says into Japanese to make sure. And no, I’m not fluent, but I am mostly conversational in Japanese (there’s some hiccups in grammar but it’s mostly that my vocabulary is not meant for niche conversations. Volcano is not one of the first 10,000 words I’m gonna learn, Chifumi, I’m sorry, although I don’t know how I forgot the word for science).


End file.
